Friday, July 27, 2012

Here it is, end of July again and I have not blogged in ages. Life has been busy, but relatively drama free and that is always a good thing. Here's a quick update on our family:

In May, we took a trip down to the Cinci area. We spent time at the Creation Museum, the Cincinnati Zoo, the Freedom Center, the Newport Aquarium, and with friends and relatives. Feeding the birds at the zoo was one of the favorite things for the kids.

The night before we left on vacation, Seely graduated from college. Because of a state program allowing junior and seniors to attend college for free, he graduated with his two year degree just weeks after turning 19. He began working full time the end of April as an Applications Developer.

Random is now 16. He will be starting the college program this fall. He attended Worldview Academy in June and absolutely loved it. It was an exhausting week with over 30 hours of lecture time learning about some pretty heavy topics, but he loves talking about those things and made a lot of great friends there.

After getting home from vacation, Lily began a therapeutic riding program. I cannot recommend this enough for any of you who have kids with disabilities. The staff there has been wonderful with her and she has gained both confidence and new abilities. And it is actually therapy! They challenge her in her weaker areas and are lavish with the praise. Horses make wonderful therapy partners and there is something beautiful about watching a horse care for her. She is with Buck in the picture on the left and Poco on the right. Both of these horses are blind in one eye and have sweet and gentle spirits making them the perfect partners for a therapeutic riding program.

Mango went to camp in June and has spent much of her summer playing outside, bowling, and drawing. She is as delightful as ever! Cooking has become a new love and I have a very reliable and capable helper in the kitchen now.

Monkey also attended camp for 3 days in June. He loved it and is looking forward to being able to attend the full week next year. Monkeys are still his favorite animals and he has been working hard learning to draw them and reading about them.

Our school year will start the second week in August here. We normally start earlier than that, but I'll be speaking to Japanese students about adoption the week before and it's best we start when we can get a full first week under our belts. This year we will be studying Ancient History, atoms and molecules, birds, magnetism, insects, and the human body, in addition to the usual reading, language arts, math, art, etc.